Musings of the Insane
by Disgruntled Peony
Summary: A very permanently stage 5 QSM Darien thinks back on his past...


Title: Musings of the Insane  
Author: liz_Z  
E-mail: liz_Z@secret-agent.com  
Category: Horror, Angst  
Rating: R  
Spoilers: Spoilers 'Money For Nothing' parts 1 and 2; references to 'Catevari', and so many other episodes I won't even bother to count 'em. Suffice it to say, there are probably slight references to the entire series that's aired so far in here.  
Disclaimer: The characters mentioned in the story herein are not mine. I don't own 'em, never have, and never will. Too bad, I think I could have done better with 'em than Jonathan Glassner... *grumble, grumble*  
Author's notes: Another after-midnight angst plot bunny popped up on me; don't kill me for writing this, PLEASE, the story idea has tormented me like anything and I'll probably never forgive myself for writing it... I'll probably have nightmares too... Oh, and sorry about the length of the content warning, but I felt it necessary.  
Content Warning: This is the most disturbing story I've ever written, and I think it's safe to say it'll be pretty disturbing to any readers as well. Y'all have read through my angst fics, with all their character torture and stuff, so you at least have some idea of what to expect. But this is much more grotesque than anything else I've ever written, and to quote William Goldman, 'there's a lot of bad stuff coming up, torture you've already been prepared for, but there's worse. There's death coming up, and you better understand this: _some of the wrong people die._ Be ready for it. This isn't Curious George Uses the Potty.' So, with that warning in mind, read on... if you dare.

'True!--Nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say I am mad? The disease has sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all the things in the heaven and the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story.' ~~ _The Telltale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe_

  
**********

  
Can you hear the voices? I hear them all the time. They keep me company now that my so-called friends are afraid to. Now that my eyes have turned silver, everyone's afraid to keep me company.

  
They're all afraid of me. Terrified, even. I can sense it. I can see it in their eyes. It makes me stronger, because I can use their fear to my advantage. I may be locked up in a padded room, but I can still benefit from their discomfort.

  
Of course, Hobbes wasn't afraid of me- at least, not as much as the others are. But after what I did to him the others learned pretty quickly that they needed to be more careful, and definitely more fearful.

  
It was very simple really, how it all happened. One day Hobbes, Alex, and I were out on a case, checking out some supposedly abandoned building that might have been turned into one of Chrysalis's cryogenic freezers. Well, not only was it one of those places, but it was filled with big goons with guns and thermals. Apparently, the whole thing had been a trap of sorts. Stark stepped out of the shadows, obviously very pleased at having finally caught me. And then Arnaud stepped out of the shadows too.

  
Now, Alex and Hobbes were out in the van because we had thought this was just a false tip, and we were only checking it out as a favor to the guy who owned the building- he and the Official were old army buddies or something. At any rate, by the time Hobbes and Alex came in to save me, I was already long gone.

  
Arnaud had plans for me. He took me to some top-secret Chrysalis lab, strapped me down naked on a lab table, and started in with all the tests. Those weren't much fun. They lasted for hours and hours, and he didn't feed me, and he didn't let me sleep because whenever he was awake he was running tests on me, and he barely slept himself. And then when the quicksilver headaches started up he wouldn't give me any counteragent.

  
He said he had several tests yet to perform, and one of them involved me going into stage five madness so he could find out just what had gone on wrong when he had his surgeon girlfriend Elizabeth Rendell put that gland of his into his head. At the time I wasn't too happy about the idea of heading into stage five, and I made sure Arnaud knew. I yelled at him at the top of my lungs for the next few hours. Then the final, sanity-splitting headache came and I headed off into stage four. After that I just settled for growling at him.

  
I'm not sure exactly how long it was before I went into stage five. I know that Arnaud left at one point to get some sleep, since he'd been working for several hours straight and was basically running on fumes at that point. I couldn't sleep, though. I could feel the madness coursing through my body, and it felt good, and I was getting stronger and stronger, and I knew that when Arnaud came back I'd break free somehow and finally, finally kill him.

  
I know by the time Arnaud came back I was in stage five. The transition didn't hurt; I just knew it had happened. There was nothing holding me back anymore, and yet I was icy calm. Because I was about to have my moment, I was about to have my revenge, and I was going to rip Arnaud's heart out of his chest and eat it.

  
Of course, that's not quite what happened.

  
First off, the straps keeping me down on that examination table wouldn't break. I tried every technique I could think of, including using the quicksilver to freeze them, but Arnaud had obviously been expecting that, because it didn't work. And Arnaud kept on running his tests on me, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

  
And then, just before Arnaud gave me the stage five counteragent and brought back that sniveling, whiny little conscience of mine, Hobbes came bursting through the door, gun at the ready. It had taken him several days to find me, and I still don't know how he did it because no one ever told me, but somehow he managed it.

  
Of course, Arnaud took the easy way out. As soon as Hobbes ran into the room he smashed the needle of counteragent to the floor and began shedding clothes and fake skin. Once he was invisible it wasn't too hard for him to dodge the bullets Hobbes was firing at him and slip out the door. All too typical... coward that he is, Arnaud always runs when given the opportunity.

  
Then Hobbes made the worst mistake of his life, because instead of chasing after Arnaud and killing that Swiss-miss-mother, he came over and undid the straps holding me down on that medical table. He seemed a little uncomfortable about something; maybe it was the fact that I was still naked. But I didn't care, and why should I have? After all, I didn't care about anything else. Except killing Arnaud, that is. I still cared about that.

  
As soon as I was free, I jumped up and started strangling Hobbes. After all, he'd let Arnaud get away, and that was unacceptable, because I still wanted to eat his heart. But since by now he was probably halfway down to Mexico, I decided to settle for killing Hobbes instead. I strangled him to death, fully enjoying his ever-weaker struggles to break free, relishing the feel of his skin giving way beneath my hands as I crushed his throat. I squeezed so hard he started to bleed from where my fingernails were pushing against his skin.

  
I couldn't quite hear his last words. Something about Claire, I think. I was surprised he even managed to say anything at all, with the way I was going at him. But I didn't care what he'd said. I just kept squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing... And then it was done. Hobbes was dead. And I tore his chest open with my bare hands and ate his heart.

  
I realized later that I shouldn't have done that. I should have waited until he helped me get out of the building, because he probably knew the way out. If only I'd waited to strangle him until we were outside, I could have hotwired a car and been long gone by the time Claire and the rest of those Agency goons showed up with their thermal goggles and tranquilizer darts.

  
But, since I killed Hobbes sooner than I should have it took me too long to find the way out of the building, and by the time I got out Claire and pretty much the entire Agency were waiting outside, and even though I quicksilvered and tried to get away one of those goons managed to nail me in the butt with a tranquilizer dart. When I woke up, I was in a padded cell.

  
Of course, Claire pulled me out of there for a little while to try and find a cure for the stage five, but no matter what she tried my snake tattoo still remained that same shade of red. And she got more and more panicky as time went on, because I only had so much time left, and she still didn't know what to do...

  
And then time was up, and I knew it. Because all of a sudden I felt a pain like never before in the back of my head, and I screamed, and I writhed, and I passed out. I don't know how long I was unconscious, but it must have been a while, because by the time I woke up I had a week's worth of beard, and I'd only had about three or four days worth the last I knew.

  
What really surprised me was that Claire hadn't harvested the gland. I've figured it out, though. It took a while, hearing little snippets of talk here and there, but over time I've realized what happened. Apparently when I hit permanent stage five the gland began to weave itself even deeper into my brain like that godforsaken parasite I always knew it was. Now it's so intertwined with the various portions of my brain that taking it out would mean not just killing me, but killing the gland as well.

  
So, here I am, locked in my own personal padded cell. They've even been so kind as to provide me with an adjoining bathroom. And it's mine. All mine. No one ever comes in to visit me anymore. I haven't seen another person in so long I can barely remember what people look like. My food gets slipped in through a little slot under the door. But, even though I don't have any flesh and blood people to talk to, there are still the voices.

  
I don't remember exactly when they started talking to me; they appeared so gradually I can't really be sure. But they came, and they never leave me alone. There's Kevin, and Simon Cole, and Hobbes, and every other person I've ever killed or watched die. And Arnaud's there too, which really pisses me off, because I never got to kill him, I never even came close, so what right does he have to be in my head? But he's still here, and no matter how many times I tell him he doesn't belong he still won't leave me alone.

  
I want out of this place. Sometimes I'll try to quicksilver the entire cell to see if I can make the walls disappear so I can see outside, but that doesn't work because they sealed up the room too well, so there's no cracks for the quicksilver to get out and cover the outsides of the walls. I've managed to quicksilver my entire cell once, but all that did was turn everything black, since quicksilver bends light and there was no way for the light to break through. Plus, it gave me a pretty bad headache and I couldn't quicksilver much of anything for the next two and a half days.

  
Old Charlie Fogerty was right, I know that now. He was right about everything. Especially my Keeper. Because all I want to do is touch Claire. I want to touch her, and I want to kiss her, and then I want to rape her and smash her head on the floor until her brains spill out because she left me locked up in this damned padded room for... for... aw crap, I don't know how long I've been in here, I've completely lost track.

  
I promise you this, I will get out someday. And when I do I'm going to kill every person responsible for making me what I am today. Claire, and the Official, and Stark, and Arnaud. Especially Arnaud. But until then I'll have the voices to keep me company. 


End file.
